


Falling Into Thedas

by GypsySisters



Series: Falling Into Thedas [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Death, Drama, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Original Character Death(s), Real Life, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-15 04:37:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GypsySisters/pseuds/GypsySisters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate is from Real Life. She plays Dragon Age. But, one night, she falls asleep on the couch, only to awaken in the Fade, with the anchor on her hand, and caught up in the events leading up to the beginning of Dragon Age Inquisition.</p><p>UPDATE 7/31: I'm probably never going to finish this. Sorry, guys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What. The. Fuck.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, I don't have rights to any of Bioware's characters or plot, no infringement intended, etc etc etc. ^_^ Thanks for reading!

My name is Kate, and I’m just like you. I used to live in your world. I’d tuck my kid into bed, cut up an apple and some cheese, and settle into my spot on the couch for the evening. Some nights, my husband, Will, would want to watch Netflix, so we’d snuggle on the couch and laugh through a Friends re-run or explore one of the countless cop-crime-dramas out there. Most of the time, though, he’d sit at his computer, playing Mass Effect for the umpteenth time while I crawled into the mystical fantasy land of Dragon Age.

We were happy.

Then, one night, I stayed up way too late playing Dragon Age, and, during a ridiculously long loading screen, I fell asleep. I awoke in a haze. I couldn’t remember if I had been dreaming. I heard the muffled sound of my daughter’s voice, crying out for me: “Mama! Mama!”

I sat up, rubbing my bleary eyes. I had been unconscious on the hard ground. It was black, like onyx. I was wearing the same clothes I fell asleep in, but I was not on my couch. I had no idea where I was. Thank God I still had my bra on. My sweater and jeans had a weird, grey dust on them. I was barefoot, the ground was cold beneath my feet, and a shiver ran up my spine. Pools of shimmering liquid lay beside me. Formations jutted out of the ground like stalagmites, and stalactites would have hung from the ceiling, except that they hung from nothing, suspended, floating in the pink sky.

It looked like the Fade, but that was ridiculous.

“Mama! Where are you?!” At the sound of my daughter’s panicked voice, I jolted up and scanned the unusual landscape. Her words echoed against the rocks. Her voice seemed to be coming from nowhere and from everywhere at the same time.

“Izzy,” I shouted out. “Izzy, where are you?!”

When I twirled around, I saw that I lay before an Eluvian. It shimmered, swirling with oily color, slowly solidifying while I watched, and then its glow subsided. I reached out and ran my finger over it. The surface was smooth and hard. It was impervious to my touch.

The artifact was a mystery, for sure, but I did not have time to explore it. This was not a game. There was no guarantee that my daughter would be safe while I searched for frivolous knowledge. I ran through the cavernous room, calling out her name: “Izzy! Izzy! Where are you?!”

I rounded a corner, and there I found a cluster of giant cockroaches, clacking their shells open and closed like terrifying wings. Of course I wouldn’t run into spiders. Spiders wouldn’t scare me. This nightmare took the form of my own, personal fears. The courage drained out of me. “Mama,” they clicked, through ethereal little mouths, with my daughter’s stolen voice. “Mama! Mama! Mama!” My heart grew wild with fear, but I could not run. I fell and crawled, backwards, terrified as the monsters approached.

“Come on!” Suddenly, Will was at my side. He grabbed my arm and helped me up.

We raced through the Fade, chased by the nightmares, unsure where each bend would lead, until finally we found ourselves stranded on a bridge that dropped off into an abyss. “Spiders!” He declared. “Why did it have to be spiders?!”

I looked at him, and confessed, “I don’t see spiders.”

“Just like the game,” he observed, calculating our situation while he played with the zipper on his hoodie. “We have to fight them,” he concluded.

“With what?!” I exclaimed?! All we had were the rocks at our feet. We gathered together what we could, until the nightmare creatures closed in on us. Then we hurled stone after stone, desperate, until suddenly, I lunged one out of my hand, and a burst of power erupted from my palm, following the arc of the rock, and stunning the group of monsters in a frenzy of electrical current.

Will approached them, with a sharp rock in one hand, and pounded down on the soft flesh between their eyes, finishing them off. Then he slid the sharp stones into his pockets.

“Whoa,” he said, returning to me. “What did you do?”

I had not moved. “I…I have no idea,” I muttered. “I think I’m in shock.”

“In shock, eh?!” He cracked a smile. “No pun intended??”

I replayed my words in my head, and realized the joke. I smiled, and it brought me back to reality (or whatever this was). “Seriously, though.” I held my palm up between us, and we both examined it. “WHAT. THE. FUCK?!”

On my hand there was a mark, a green mark, and it glowed.

“I wonder if you can use it to get us out of here,” he said, looking around. “We got lucky with those spiders, or whatever they were. But we might get boned next time!”

“Good point,” I said, and we backtracked, away from the edge of the bridge. “There was an Eluvian. Maybe it will be like a door back home.”

As soon as we entered the cavern, however, we knew there was no hope of reaching it. The ground was now crawling with nightmare creatures, drawn to us, pulled by the scent of our being.

I turned towards the bridge and concentrated on my hand. I knew what this mark meant. I knew there must be power inside of me, if only I could tap into it. The green mark sparked and glowed. I concentrated, lifting my hand up and over the bridge. The air peeled apart in a rip, but, quickly, it sealed shut again. I needed to master the anchor, but, for now, there was no time.

Will held a sharp rock in each hand, bludgeoning the frontrunners as they drew near. “Stay behind me!” He yelled, kicking the creatures and bashing his rocks into their faces. But there were too many. They were upon us.

I turned my concentration towards the swarming monsters and tapped into the power I used before. Bolts of electricity jolted out of my fingers and singed the creatures, stunning them, buying us time. We raced into the cavern, and there before us, blocking our path to the Eluvian, lay another swarm of nightmares.

“Look,” Will gestured away from the Eluvian and up a long slope. At the top of a steep flight of stairs that were carved into the side of the ridge, there hovered a glowing figure. “Isn’t that…?”

“Yes. Divine Justinia,” I answered, “Just like in the game.”

We wasted no time. We ran to the stairs, then bolted up, two at a time. We were going to make it out alive!

Then, suddenly, I heard Izzy’s voice cry out, clear as day, “Mama! Papa! Help me!” I turned around. There, in the middle of the cavern, in her pink zip-up footie pajamas, with her crazy tousled bedhead, stood my little girl. She looked as if she had just woken up and wandered out of her room.

“IZZY!” I shrieked. And before I knew what was happening, Will was running past me, barreling towards our daughter. I followed on his heels, and together we raced across the canyon and out to her. Will scooped her up in his arms, and I blasted a wave of electricity at the oncoming monsters, immobilizing them in their path.

We bolted back to the staircase, but the creatures were gaining on us, now. Will swung Izzy onto his back, hollering “Hold on tight, kiddo!” and he clambered up the steep steps, as sure footed as a mountain goat.

I kept looking back, sending waves of magical electricity to keep the monsters at bay, but it was no use. They were gaining on us. And then, for a fleeting second, I saw what emerged in their midst. A terror demon caught sight of us and reeled his face up at the sky in awful glee.

I hated terror demons more than any other demon. I hated how they burrowed into the earth, only to reappear beneath your feet and knock you down. I hated their long gangly limbs and their jeering faces. I looked up to Will and shouted, “Watch out!”

I sped up the remaining few steps as fast as I could. Will waited at the top, holding Izzy in his arms. He leaned forward, to hear me better, “What?” The glowing spirit of Divine Justinia was by his side, opening up a bright rip in the air.

“Terror Demon! Underfoot!”

The warning came just in time. As the demon unearthed the ground beneath his feet, Will tumbled to the side, holding Izzy to his chest as he rolled and stood up again. Will knew he barely stood a chance against the nightmare creatures; this terror demon was a whole different challenge, especially while protecting his little girl. “I wish I had a gun,” he muttered to himself.

“Papa,” Izzy cried. “I’m scared.”

“I know, baby girl.”

I had just reached the top of the hill. I saw him kiss her curly little head and whisper in her ear. The rift was almost complete. He set her on the ground, in front of the glowing portal, and stood between her and the demon, pulling two sharp rocks out of his pockets.

I electrocuted the demon, trying to draw its attention, but it was no use. It had chosen its target.

I watched, helplessly, as the demon swiped at my family. Will lunged to protect Izzy. As she was knocked back into the unformed rift, the demons long tendril impaled him, then flung his limp body up into the air. I screamed as her pink little form disappeared, swallowed up in the glow. I screamed as I ran towards the terror demon, summoning more power than I ever dreamed I could possess, blasting it until it collapsed, fried and inert before me.

I rushed to my husband, who now lay, crumbled and bloodied, before the glowing rift. “Will!!” I cried, tears streaming down my face. I pulled him into my lap, cradling his face. “No! Will! Don’t leave me!”

He was covered in his own blood. He reached his hand up, choking on his words, and blood gurgled in his throat. “I…will always…live…” his two fingers tapped my chest.

I took his hand in my own, squeezing it against my bosom, smiling through my tears. “You will always live in my heart.”

He nodded. He started to smile, then he seized, choking on his own blood, and the life drained out of his face. I clenched him to me, and yelled out, wailing into the Fade.

The rift glowed beside us. The spirit of Divine Justinia hovered nearby. She lifted her arms, and the light expanded, swallowing us, pulling us into its portal.

We materialized on the other side, kneeling in the center of a scorched ruin, surrounded by the burnt figures of smoldering corpses. This was the Temple of Sacred Ashes. My daughter was nowhere to be seen. Overcome with grief, drained from travelling through the Fade, clenching my dead husband in my arms, I keeled over and passed out.


	2. The Seeker and the Apostate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas and Cassandra monitor the new arrival, as she lays unconscious in the dungeon.
> 
> PLOT SPOILERS.

"Come, now, Cassandra. Are these shackles truly necessary?"

Solas, the elven apostate, knelt over a woman who lay unconscious and chained on the floor. He gazed up at Cassandra Pentaghast, his question echoing in his beady eyes. The dungeon was cold. These passages under the chantry had fallen into disuse. The air was thick and dank. The cold iron bars of the cells spanned the circumference of the room, and, behind them, walls were swallowed in shadow.

Cassandra was dour. She stood in dark leather armor, her arms crossed, her jaw clenched. The symbol of the Seekers of Truth was branded upon her heart, cast into the grooves of her iron chest plate. Her dark hair was cropped short around her face, and one thin braid regally circled her crown, barely visible in the half light. A fresh wound lay exposed on her face, a red cut that spanned from her cheekbone to her chin. How careless she had been, to be wounded so. The healers had offered to remove the scar, but she refused. She needed to remember: how recklessly she had rushed to the conclave, hoping to save Divine Justinia, how many mistakes she had made that fateful day. The Divine was dead. There was a hole in the sky, a breech into the Fade, and it threatened them all.

She would make no more mistakes. And she did not trust this elf. "The shackles stay on."

In the center of the dungeon, Solas's peculiar form gleamed in the flickering torchlight. He was pale, in contrast to his grim surroundings, and his skin seemed white as bone. His clothes had been well-made and were handsome, in an antiquated sort of way, but now they were worn, thin with age, with frayed hems that he neither noticed nor bothered to attend to. His wool coat folded open at his neck, laced with pale downy feathers, soft against his throat. His bald head was smooth. His pointy ears pulled back away from his angular face

He returned his attention to his charge, reaching out with his spirit, pulling on ancient magic to tend to her, to keep her alive, to mitigate the shock of being joined to the anchor on her hand.

The anchor. He pushed thoughts about its origin to the back of his mind. This was neither the time nor the place to dwell on his mistakes. What was required of him now was action: he needed to keep this woman alive. After that, he could ascertain more clearly how to repair the damage he'd inflicted.

When this stranger had emerged from the Fade, clutching the body of a man who had recently died, she fell unconscious into the burnt remains of the temple and was covered in black dust. A servant had sponged her off, but smudges of soot lingered behind her ears and around the neckline of her cable knit sweater. There was nothing remarkable about her clothing: no indicators of what country she had come from, no crest, no seal, no telltale tartan or recognizable cut in the design. On her strange blue pants, there was a patch that read “Aeropostale,” but no one in Haven had ever heard of a tailor or a shop by that name. She had no shoes. She had no weapon. She had no sack or belongings. There was an overwhelming lack of evidence about her identity.

The one thing they had to go on was the ring on her finger. It matched the ring on the man’s cold hand, engraved with a strange language: “gra geal mo chroi.” The ring was formed into two hands that joined together to hold a heart topped by a crown. One did not have to know what the inscription said to understand its meaning. These two were lovers and companions, and she had lost him.

Solas looked down at her face. Her hair was dark and tousled, feathering around her smooth neck. She had a firm jaw and a small cleft in her chin. Her mouth was parted slightly as she breathed, through dusty pink lips. Light freckles scattered across her otherwise pale features, and the cold air brought a slight flush to her cheeks. Her long eyelashes lay closed over her slumbering eyes, fluttering as she raced through wild dreams. Her eyebrows were thick but sculpted. There were wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. She looked kind, like someone who laughed a lot and was not afraid to show it.

Solas closed his eyes, opened his mind, and reached out to connect with this woman’s dormant spirit.

Inside of her there lay a connection he was unfamiliar with. A deep well of memory and feeling was tied to her in an almost otherworldly fashion. He opened up his celestial spirit and reached out to examine the remarkable shape of her strange soul and the powerful anchor that was being fused to her being. Calling on forgotten knowledge, he helped to stabilize the power growing within her, healing the wounds to her physical body in the process, knitting her together with magical energy to sooth her weariness and bring her back out of oblivion.

When he had finished, he looked once more upon her face and placed his hand against her cheek. “I am so sorry for your loss,” he sighed, then rose, burying his heavy heart inside him, keeping his movements agile and light. This was going to be a dance, after all. Staying in the midst of these people, helping them navigate the difficult trials ahead, while keeping his true purpose hidden from a myriad of suspicious and intelligent minds: it promised to be the most difficult of tasks.

Cassandra already suspected duplicity. He knew the look in her eyes, the way she regarded him with a caution that bordered on fear. The unknown always frightened narrow-minded people. And that is why he decided to keep the stranger’s secrets in confidence. He faced the Seeker, “She will live.”

“Is that all?” Cassandra was pushing him for more information. She suspected he was holding something back.

Solas cracked a smile, “If you are asking me if I know how this unknown woman came to us with a mark of unknown origin, then I have no answer for you.” He chuckled. “There is much that is beyond my knowledge.”

Cassandra approached the prisoner, looking down at her, burdened by questions, needing answers. “When will she awaken?”

“She is stable for now. It could be a few hours. It could be a few days. I’ve never seen something like this, so it’s hard to say exactly, but she will recover. She will come around.”

Cassandra nodded.

“If I may, Speaker.”

She turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow at this unusual mage, “Yes?”

Solas relaxed his features and raised his eyebrows in earnest supplication, “The breech in the sky threatens us all. I believe I can help. I would like to stay, to aid you in your cause.”

“I am not one to turn away help,” she admitted, acknowledging the severity of the situation they were in. Even so, her perceptive gaze pierced into him, as she attempted to use her intimidation to root out any pretense he may be hiding behind. “But I do not trust you, Solas. If you undermine the work we are doing here, I will not hesitate to have you executed as an apostate.”

Solas knew the limits of his power. If he was found out, the forces here could easily overpower him. He needed all the guile he could summon on his side. He was walking into the fold as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and a shepherd like Cassandra would not hesitate to hunt him down and seek out vengeance. If she ever learned the truth of who he was and what he’d done, his life was as good as forfeit.

The rift in the sky, the explosion at the conclave, the death of all those people, including her beloved Divine Justinia: it was all his fault. He never planned for these things to happen. He did not trigger the explosion that blew up the Temple of Sacred Ashes, but he was the one responsible, the one who set events in motion that led to its destruction. How could he let this happen? Ignorance was no excuse. The burden of his mistake hung around his neck like a noose. The only hope he had of finding peace was to join forces with the Seeker and try to make things right.

He bowed his head, in deference, and looked at her with discerning eyes. “Our causes are one in the same, Cassandra. The breech threatens the whole world. There is nowhere to hide from it.”

She sighed. She never thought she would join forces with an apostate. She nodded at her strange ally, “I suppose you are right.”


	3. Whatever It Takes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra and Leliana interrogate their prisoner.

I woke up on the floor of the dungeon, and my back was killing me. I was groggy and confused. I couldn't stretch; my hands were shackled. As I started to move around, clanging in my restraints, a young woman gasped, "You're awake!" and shot out of the room. 

I got up on my knees. I can never see straight when I first wake up, even if I wake up rested and in my bed. I did not feel rested, and I was most certainly not in a bed. My vision was blurry. I blinked a few times as I looked out over the room. The red glow of torchlight was all around. Guards surrounded me, their faces hidden in helmets, and the helmets shrouded in shadow. Their swords were drawn, ready to strike me down. The masonry was dark and foreboding. The air was cold and still. I felt like I was in a tomb. Before me, the symbol of the chantry was imprinted on the center of the cold stone floor.

The mark on my hand sparked, casting a green glow on my disheveled clothes, making the hair that hung loose by my face light up in a glimmer, wild and alien.

Without delay, the door to the dungeon slammed open. The silhouetted form of Cassandra Pentaghast strutted forward, and the guards sheathed their weapons, one by one, the echo of steel on steel reverberating against the bare walls.

A hooded figure in lavender robes approached warily, keeping her distance. That would be Leliana, the Spymaster. She scanned my body language, searched every expression that flitted across my face, testing it against her gut as if she was a living, breathing lie detector. Her rosy lips were pursed. Her eyes betrayed a deep sensitivity, the kind that only comes to those who allow themselves to experience deep emotion. I met her gaze. I could feel her fresh and insufferable pain.

Meanwhile, the Seeker circled me, on the hunt for truth. Her boots clicked in rhythm with her words as she started her interrogation. “Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now. The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.”

I had been in a daze, but, in that moment, everything that had happened came rushing back. My mind was suddenly alert. Waves of fear and adrenaline pounded through my veins. No. It was impossible. This was all too much. The terse warrior and the alluring spy, my captors paused, waiting for me to speak, searching me for clues. It was all too much. I sucked air into my lungs. The air was too real. It was all too real. This was not happening. 

Will did not die. Izzy was not gone. No. These things were not happening.

I had been silent too long. Cassandra was growing impatient. She reached down and grabbed my marked hand. The grooves of her glove dug into my flesh. As she pulled my arm, it sent shooting pains down my back. The heat of her breath formed a tiny cloud that dissipated as soon as she spoke. “Explain this.”

The room, the smells, the sounds, the feelings…none of it was what a dream would feel like. This was real. Around me were a thousand mundane and innocuous details: my cold toes, the grooves in the floor, the faint scent of pine, the weave of Leliana’s hood, the stray bits of ginger hair that wisped back and forth as she breathed, and, with the Seeker hovering over me, I could not help but notice every individual hair that composed each of her arched and angular brows. Altogether, these trifles formed one big reality, one giant Dragon Age-y reality.

I couldn’t help myself. I started to laugh. 

Cassandra was appalled. She grabbed me by the collar, jerking me up, “You think this is funny?” 

That just made me laugh harder. This was so fucking ridiculous. Cassandra. Threatening me. In a dungeon. Because of the mark. Because of the Conclave. Every little detail from the game that entered my head just made me laugh harder and harder, making her madder and madder. She started to shake me, until Leliana interceded, pushing her towards the wall, pressing her hand against the Seeker’s chest. “We need her, Cassandra.” A disgusted grunt was her only recourse.

I could think of nothing but my family. Will and Izzy were dead. I just knew it, and it was so unreal, it was hilarious.

Our life wasn’t perfect, but we had been happy. I had FINALLY been HAPPY, damn it! We had a good life. And now, what?! What was I supposed to do? Go through the motions? Let them make me over in Andraste’s image so I could save their world?

I was laughing so hard that I was crying.

This wasn’t a real world. No matter how real it felt, it could never be as real as snuggling on the couch at the end of the day, nuzzling my head into the crook of Will’s shoulder, feeling his beard scratch my cheek as he leaned over to give me a kiss. It could never replace Izzy, all wild curls and yawns, wandering out of her room in the morning, to find me making eggs and toast in the kitchen.

That’s when the laughter died completely, and I was left wailing on the floor. Fuck this. Cassandra could kill me, for all I cared. I wanted to go home. Tears poured out of me, streaking my face. I felt like my heart had been torn apart. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

I felt a hand on my back. At first, the gentle touch just made me cry all the harder, but then it steadied me. When the sobs calmed down, I looked up into Leliana’s compassionate eyes. “We don’t even know who you are,” she admitted, letting the implied question hang in the air. Cassandra remained silent, arms crossed, watching.

“My name is Kate.” 

My situation was confounding, and not just to myself. I could see the confusion in Leliana’s eyes, as well as the deep mistrust in Casandra’s.

“Your name and your accent…are you from the Free Marches?”

I looked at her blankly. I didn’t have enough facts to conjure up a backstory. “I don’t know,” I lied. “I…I can’t remember.”

“There was a man with you when you came through the rift.” She paused, cocked her head forward, questioning me with her eyes, allowing me to divulge whatever lay on my heart.

“Yeah,” I confessed. “That’s Will, my husband…well…he was my husband.” I started to lose it again, but gathered myself together. A glimmer of hope welled up inside me, “Did you also…was there also…a little girl? Dressed all in pink?”

Leliana’s quick intake of breath betrayed her concern. She looked up into the eyes of the Seeker. Cassandra shook her head. “No,” Leliana replied, catching each nuance in my expression as the news confirmed my fears. “Was she your…?”

“Yes. She was my daughter.” I let out a sigh. “Will dies in my arms, and Izzy dies alone…” I couldn’t take it. It was too much grief. I curled up in a ball and hid my face from my captors. 

I wasn’t just a prisoner in a room. This whole world was my cage, and, in that instant, I hated it. I hated every atom. I hated every wavelength. I hated every little cell. I hated every grain of dust. I hated every step in the long road ahead of me that I knew these people would need me to walk down. I hated the writers for imagining the game. I hated Bioware for developing it. I hated Canada, because that’s where they made it. I hated everything.

I looked up, deadlocking my gaze on Cassandra, “I can’t explain the mark.”

“What do you mean you can't?” Cassandra took the bait. She was furious.

The next words were like venom on my lips. “I can’t. I don’t know what it is, or how it got there.” I hated myself for speaking from the script, for being complicit with the fate laid out for me.

“You're lying.”

Leliana interceded, diffusing the tension that was growing, before Cassandra could throttle me again. “Do you remember what happened? How this began?”

I took a breath, thought back on the events in the Fade. How much should I reveal? What would they even believe? Bitterly, I decided on half-truths. “I remember running. Will was with me, carrying Izzy. Things were chasing us…and then...a woman.”

“A woman?” Leliana was surprised.

“She reached out to us. She created a light in the sky. But then…Will was killed, and Izzy fell into the light.” I looked down, “He died saving her, but then the light burned her up. She died anyways.”

The wheels were turning inside Leliana’s head, “Not necessarily.”

I looked at her in surprise. 

Cassandra spoke up, “Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take her to the rift.” Leliana whispered something in her ear before she set out.

I couldn’t let it go, “What do you mean, ‘Not necessarily’? What are you not telling me?!”

Cassandra undid my restraints. “It will be easier to show you.”

I rose up and started to follow her, and then I remembered what I was wearing. More pointedly, I remembered what I was not wearing. “Um…do you have any shoes?”

Cassandra grunted. “Oh, yes. We noticed your strange attire,” (at the word ‘strange,’ she arched an eyebrow at me). “We gathered some things for you here,” she lifted a small pile of clothes off a shelf. They were nothing fancy, but, right on top, there was a pair of standard adventuring boots. I sat down to lace them up, then pulled out the velveteen cloak and draped it over my shoulders. 

We emerged into daylight. The sky was bright and blue. Caught up in the clouds hung the terrible rift, menacing and strange. Specks of ash floated down on us, an eerie sheen on the already snowy landscape. The scent of sulfur lingered in the air. 

Cassandra was several paces ahead of me, staring up at the sky. “We call it The Breach. It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It’s not the only such rift. Just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.” She made her way back to where I stood, transfixed. Her boots crunched in the snow as she walked. “We don’t know much about these rifts. The energy is unstable, and anything could happen. But, if you emerged here, at the heart of the explosion, it is possible that…”

“…that Izzy could have emerged somewhere else.” My eyes were wide. It made sense, but it also made my heart ache. There were so many rifts. “She could be anywhere.”

“Unless we act now, the Breech will grow until it swallows the world.”

The hole into the Fade grew wide in the sky, and the anchor on my hand lit up with a wild green glow. 

“Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads, and it is killing you. It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn't much time.” She paused, her expression softened, and she added, “I will not give you false hope; but, I promise: if you help us close the rift, I will do everything in my power to find your little girl.”

Then the reality of the situation struck me. I was no warrior. I had no sneaky rogue skills. I barely blundered through a couple newfound spells. The fact that I would be expected to defend myself was like a sick joke. I was ill-equipped for whatever lay in store. Was this going to be a “casual difficulty” adventure, or had The Maker thrown me into a true nightmare? There was no way to know. It probably wouldn’t make a difference, anyways. I’d never killed a thing my entire life. I was about to rush into a battle with nothing but the foreknowledge of how events could play out. And I knew there was a really good chance that I might die. “I want your word that you will search for her…no matter what happens.”

The Seeker regarded me, her voice suddenly soft, “Then…?”

“I’ll do what I can, whatever it takes.”

We stood. She cut the bindings on my hands. Then she drew her sword and pierced it into the soft earth, hands grasping her hilt, and knelt before me, “I vow to you, Kate, with Holy Andraste as my witness: I will do everything in my power to find your little girl and bring her to safety.”

I was crying. She was so powerful, so beautiful, so strong, and I did not doubt her. She rose and sheathed her weapon. “Come now,” she gestured forward, embarrassed by my emotional display. “Let us not lose faith.”

I dried my face and nodded. I had to find something to believe in. The alternative was unfathomable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the comments. It's really great to hear your feedback & reactions.


	4. The Bridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra and Kate make their way to the forward camp.

Cassandra and I worked our way through the town and up the hill, and, before I knew it, we were at the bridge. You know the one: the first time you play through the opening sequences, you can tell something is about to happen, because the coding on the stones stands out just enough to make you notice it. But there was no coding this time. There was a cluster of men—real live men—on the opposite side of a real stone bridge; and there was an expanse of sky, with green comets raining down around us.

I turned to Cassandra, “Tell your people to get off the bridge.”

“Why would I…”

“Just do it! Now!”

Cassandra saw the urgency in my eyes, and called out the order. The men scurried to safety on the other side. “Now tell me what that was about.”

“You’ll see,” I said, scanning the sky, bracing for an explosion.

The seconds crawled by, turning into minutes, and Casandra’s impatience grew. She twirled me around, demanding my attention, “Tell me what you are keeping from me, before I extract it from you.”

I was confused, “The bridge…it should have happened by now…unless…” No. It wasn’t possible. There couldn’t possibly be a trigger point for a flesh-and-blood story.

But there was only one way to find out.

I turned and started walking across the bridge, Cassandra hot on my heels, “Don’t walk away from me! Let me remind you, you are still a prisoner! If you will not heed…” And just as she caught up to me, the explosion hit us, and the ground crumbled beneath our feet. The men watched from safety on the other side, as we tumbled into the ravine.

As soon as we reached the bottom, a demon spawned before us. Cassandra gave me a baffled look, then turned away to slay it, “Stay behind me,” she shouted, wielding her shield, rushing out across the frozen river.

Of course, as soon as she left my side, a demon started forming right in front of me, as well. Panicked, I looked around. There were two short blades on the ground. I picked them up, brandishing one in each hand. The demon slashed out at me. When I lifted the weapons to defend myself, he swiped them right out of my hands, and they went clattering away on the ice.

My arm was bleeding, but I couldn’t feel it. I scurried backwards, out of range of the demon’s reach. That’s when I saw the shield. I ran over to it and tried to lift it up to protect myself, but it was too heavy. I struggled and struggled under the weight of it, as the demon grew close. Then, at the last second, I cowered down on the ground behind it, shut my eyes, and willed it to protect me. I reached deep into myself, and the next thing that happened was so astonishing, I’m not sure I can accurately describe it.

Do you know the feeling you have when you haven’t ridden a bike for a long time, then you get on a bike and it comes to you, naturally? This was similar, except it was like riding a bike for the first time and already having the muscle memory of how to do it.

It was like a door in my mind opened up, and this new language of Feeling and Form came to me, unbidden, unwilling to be denied.

I _willed_ for protection to cover me. As the demon’s long claw descended down on my soft form, a barrier spell ignited, setting me aglow, and absorbing the damage from his attack. The inertia of the impact sent me flailing back onto my butt several paces away. I jumped up on my feet, and I noticed a staff resting on some crates. The demon had his sights set on me, and I had no idea how long this magic barrier would sponge up his attacks, so I bolted for it.

As I grabbed the staff, the door in my mind flew wide open, and the untapped potential inside of me swelled. I raised the staff and slammed it into the ground, setting my focus on my demon nemesis, willing the lightning inside of me to shoot out and tangle itself around him in a wild dance of fury. He curled up in agony, and I slammed the staff, again, as my newfound power coursed through my veins. I was the moon, pulling and pushing my magical electron waves. I was the conductor, and this electricity was my symphony.

It was invigorating.

And then, he dissolved into a pile of essence. It reminded me of Peter Pan’s shadow, inert, in Wendy Darling’s drawer. I picked it up. It was solid, smooth, like a piece of silk.

“Put down your weapon,” Cassandra was pointing her sword at me.

I yelped and dropped the staff and the shade essence, in my surprise.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” she tisked, lowering her blade. “Are you truly so untested?”

I shrugged my shoulders, “I’ve never killed anything before. Frankly, up until now, the thought of combat scared the shit out of me. But fighting that creature was…”

“Exhilarating?” She was half-smiling. She chuckled at me like I was her younger sister.

“Yeah.” I grinned. “I never knew I could do anything like that.”

“Tell me this,” she challenged, while sheathing her blade. “How did you know to warn the men? How did you know about the bridge?” Before me stood a woman of Faith, and I could see the look in her eyes as she searched me for answers. She did not know what to make of me, but her hopes were growing by the minute.

I needed to bargain for time. “It’s really complicated.”

“Simplify it for me.”

“I can’t…not without raising even more questions.” She was not buying this. “Cassandra, people are dying as we speak. Let’s get through this, right now. Let’s save them.”

“You are right,” she sighed, and cocked an eyebrow at me, “but this is not over.” Then she looked down at my wound and pulled a potion off her belt, extending it to me. “You look like you need this.”

The healing potion was smaller than I expected; it was more like a vial. Inside swirled a liquid, cherry-red, glittering and surreal. I popped open the cork with my thumb and swallowed the contents in one gulp. Instantaneously, the wound on my arm knit itself back together, leaving only the crusty blood on my solid, unharmed flesh. Uncertain what to do with the bottle, I tucked it into the pocket of my jeans.

I looked up at my guardian, “And what about the staff?”

“What about it?”

“I’m going to need it.”

She sighed with resignation, “I suppose I cannot guarantee that we will not be attacked, again.”

I chuckled, thinking to myself: “I, for one, _can_ guarantee that we _will_ be attacked again.” But there was no way I was going to say that aloud. Nah uh. She’d probably zap me with her laser vison, or something. So I just I picked up the staff. As I held it, I felt it tap into the wellspring of magic that was bubbling up inside of me.

This was going to take some getting used to.


End file.
